PATROLLING warrants a short chapter of its own, especially because on
some parts of the frontier it was not only the chief, but the sole activity of
the detachments. Police patrols fell into two categories -- routine and
special. Routine patrols were carried out on a schedule, to deliver mail,
to make a regular visit to a community, to obtain monthly or weekly
supplies, to check on game,
1 or for some other usual purpose. Special
patrols were sent out for particular reasons -- to investigate crimes, to
render aid in individual instances, to explore a certain area, sometimes
with a view to the establishment of a new detachment.

"Patrol" always suggests the picture of a policeman and his dog-sled,
but in police reports it describes movement on official business by any
means, from foot to steamboat to aeroplane. Most of the regular patrols
and the important special patrols on the northern frontier were carried
out by dog team at first simply because this was the best method of travel
over the greater part of the year. Later, sled patrols over the Territories
were outdistanced by other kinds.
2 But this occurred only as the north
ceased to be a frontier, in the nineteenth-century, non-mechanized sense
of the word.

Most of the northern police detachments employed one or more Natives as dog team drivers; they were Inuit, Indian, or Métis, depending
on the location of the post, and they generally lived with their families in
a small building belonging to the detachment. The Natives, especially
the Inuit, generally did much of the actual work of driving the sleds,
which were often their own, the technique of hitching and handling the
dogs being determined by the area of origin of the driver. Very often, in

Notes for this page

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.comPublication information:
Book title: Showing the Flag:The Mounted Police and Canadian Sovereignty in the North, 1894-1925.
Contributors: William R. Morrison - Author.
Publisher: University of British Columbia Press.
Place of publication: Vancouver, B.C..
Publication year: 1985.
Page number: 132.

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